I have been knitting a lot of hats using straight needles. I enjoy most parts of the process, except for sewing the seams together. Despite of how careful I am, the seam is still somehow visible. Until I discover knitting with circular needle…

The point of knitting in a circular needles is not to let your cast-on row twisted. Once you twist it, your knit can never be untwisted. It might be easier to understand by video instruction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUxXOMnpTzk

Here is my first circular needle experiment:

An instruction to knit a similar hat can be found here:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/checkered-not-so-bored#

It only takes you a few hours to knit a simple hat, so if you like knitting, don’t waste money buying yourself a new hat :P

Good luck.

Deli

I just discover a new knitting technique called the “braid pattern”. It really looks like you braid your hair: 

It’s actually another form of cable knitting. If you want to know how to knit it, please visit this website: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-knit-a-braid-cable.html

I felt in love with this technique, not because it’s so charming, but also, I can use the pattern for so many different purposes. For example, I have a big turtle neck sweater. I hate the neck because it’s too big, makes me look much shorter. I just ripped it off, but the neck seam doesn’t look good at all after than. Then I discover the braid knit, and I try to attach the braided strip to the neck line. Here is what I get:

I sewed a knitted red flower to cover up the seam line (see my previous post on how to knit a flower :))

I also have an old tank top for summer, and I want to turn it into an autumn look. So I just knit another braided strip and attach to the neck line:

I am planning on using this technique to make a hair band or a wrist band. I’m sure you will come up with a lot of ideas and I am looking forward to see your creativity :)

Jeans are great for most casual occasions, but I’m sure most people have jeans they don’t wear anymore, because it’s old, out-dated, boring or not fashionable anymore… I myself prefer shorts, because I think it’s more comfortable and easier to mix with many different styles. Instead of buying new shorts, I just cut off my 3 old jeans that I left in my wardrobe since last year. Here are my products:

Here is how I cut my jeans:

1. Lay your jeans flat and determine where you want to cut. You can use a short that fit you well to help measuring the length, or simply wear the jeans on and mark how short you want your short to be :D I prefer cutting my short about 2cm longer than the length I want, so that I have some extra fabric to fix if my first cutting line is bad, make fringes, or roll up the trunks.

2. Do not cut your jeans horizontally. Instead, make diagonal cut. If you notice the red lines I marked on the pictures above, you will see my cutting lines are parallel to the waist line. Once you get your lines, go ahead and cut your jeans :D

3. You are almost done now. Try your short on to see if you need to fix your cutting lines. You can now decide how you want to modify your short. You can roll up, make fringes, attach some buttons, embroidery or make scratches… That’s the best thing I like about jeans. You can play with it, do some crazy ideas and your jeans still look good! Be creative ^^.

This is one of my short I wore to the beach this afternoon. I pulled the bags out, rolled up the trunks and made a lot of fringes :D 

How about helping your boyfriend reconstructing his old jeans? I’m sure he will be amazed :D Good luck!

Deli

What is your favorite style for Autumn? Combine your summer dress with scarf or wear a light jacket? Hmm… sometimes autumn days could still be very hot and a scarf or a jacket is probably not a good idea. But I have a solution! Why not having a little knitty something to give other people a hint of autumn style? Like these:

It’s actually very simple to knit these flowers, using basic stitches such as: knit, purl, knit 2 together and purl 2 together. I prefer using mohair yarn to create the “fluffy” effect, but any light weight yarn would be fine.

You will need big needles, from 6mm to 10mm diameter, the bigger the needles, the larger and fluffier the flower :)

First, cast on 100 stitches on your needle

1st row: knit all

2nd row: purl 2 together all (create 50 stitches)

3rd row: knit 2 together all (create 25 stitches)

4th row: purl 2 together all (create 13 stitches)

5th row: knit 2 together all (create 7 stitches)

Now cut your yarn, leaving a tail of about 20cm and thread the yarn on to a sewing needle; thread through the remaining 7 stitches to secure. 

Curl the knitted piece until it looks like a flower, sew the yarn through the middle of the flower to secure.

Oh if you want to create more depth for your flower, or make it more colorful, you can use a yarn of different color since row 1 or 2 :)

Here is some of my ideas how to use the flower:

Tie it to a leather string to make a necklace

Use a safety pin and attach the flower on your clothes

Use as a hair clip!

You probably notice the edge of the smaller flower has braid pattern, while the edge of the bigger flower looks like loops. The different cast on technique makes different looks.

For the smaller flower, I use the “long tail” cast on method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQVi5i3GCc&feature=related For this method, you have to leave a very long yarn tail since you are casting on 100 stitches

For the bigger one, I use the “thumb” cast on method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxHHrjE1XtE . With this method, you do not have to worry about leaving enough yarn for the tail like in the previous method.

To knit easier, you should cast on very loosely, or cast on 2 needles instead of one, then pull one needle out when you are done casting on, leaving very loose stitches.

Once you get used to the pattern, it will only take you 15 minutes to make 1 flower! Good luck and enjoy knitting :D

Deli

It feels like “love at first sight” when I first see a picture of an entrelac scarf last week. I have never seen anyone near me wear something like that, so I decide I have to learn it immediately. It is probably best to use yarn in saturate-color, but I don’t have, so I decide to knit for my boyfriend a scarf in orange and brick-color yarn, with some random color blocks like this:

If you want to try this technique out, the following link probably is the best explanation for Entrelac knitting I could find online :)

http://knittyotter.typepad.com/otterknits/2007/03/entrelac_scarf_.html

Here is the video instruction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLxMt9GehM

I really love this technique, I think it’s very special, so why don’t you knit it to your special person?

P/s: I can’t wait until I finish my bf’s scarf to start my own scarf using mohair yarn in light gray, pink and purple color <3. I hope I can finish both of them soon, since I am also knitting my own bikini for this summer ^^

I always want to do something different, and when I see this pattern, I immediately want to try it:

If you are interested in it, you can download the pattern here:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/destroyed-cowl

For me, the most tricky part is to connect 2 ends together to create an “infinity scarf”. The pattern used “kitchener stitch” to make a seamless connection. Here is the instruction how to do it:

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer04/FEATtheresasum04.html

Video instruction:

http://www.graspr.com/videos/THE-KITCHENER-STITCH-VIDEO-GRAFTING-1

Enjoy knitting ^^

Deli 

I found this pattern very interesting :) Not too easy, but once you get the idea, you can knit freely without having to count the stitches all the time ^^. This probably one of the most manly pattern I have ever knitted.

This is how I knit it:

Pattern: cast on 46 stitches

*Rows 1 and 5: (RS) K11, p2, k2, p2, k12, p2, k2,p2, k11 .

*Rows 2 and 6: P1, k8, p2, [k2, p2] 2 times, k8, p2, [k2, p2] 2 times, k8, p1.

*Rows 3 and 7: K1, p8, [k2, p2] 2 times, k2, p8,[k2, p2] 2 times, k2, p8, k1.

*Rows 4 and 8: P11 , k2, p2, k2, p12, k2, p2, k2, p11 .

*Row 9: Knit.

*Rows 10 and 14: [P2, k2] 2 times, p12,[k2,p2,k2], p12,[k2, p2] 2 times.

*Rows 11 and 15: [K2, p2] 2 times, k2, p8, [k2, p2] 2times, k2, p8, [k2, p2] 2times, k2

*Rows 12 and 16: [P2, k2] 2 times, p2, k8, [p2, k2] 2times, p2, k8, [p2, k2] 2times, p2.

*Rows 13 and 17: [k2, p2] 2 times, k12, [p2,k2,p2], k12, [p2,k2] 2 times.

*Row 18: Purl

Knit until you get the desired length. End at row 9 or 18 and bind off as usual. 

I hope this could be a great gift for your father, husband or boyfriend this winter :)

One of my hobbies is knitting. My mom taught me how to knit since I was small, but I did not really into it. I don’t know what triggered me to knit again, but I have been knitting every time I could since last winter. Now I have a collection of more than 20 products. The first one I want to introduce here is my own design: The green vine ascot scarf.

You can find a similar instruction to knit an ascot scarf here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bow-knot-scarf 

(ravelry.com is an awesome page for knitters, so if you haven’t got an account there yet, don’t hesitate to sign up ^^)

I customized my scarf in the part that wrap around the neck. I use cables and knit through back loop (k tbl) stiches to make the lines between the cables more visible. If you are not sure how to knit cables and k tbl, look up videos on Youtube:

Cables : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn3I_JD7Ek4

k tbl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQAaHV8aHBQ

This scarf is very easy, create a vintage and yet, very cute look for girls. Please leave me comments and show me your progress if you are going to knit one for yourself :)

Good luck,

Deli